People's Palace and Winter Garden

Detail of the exterior of the People's Palace and Winter Garden.

When the People's Palace and Winter Garden opened in 1898 the surrounding area of Glasgow's old centre and East End was an unhealthy and extremely overcrowded place. Glasgow Green was the only large area for recreation nearby. At the opening, Lord Rosebery, declared it 'open to the people for ever and ever' and characterised it as 'a palace of pleasure and imagination.' The idea of creating a museum for the people of the east end went back as far as 1866, but it was only in 1889 that planning began in earnest. The city fathers were influenced by the success of the Kibble Palace which had been installed in the Botanic Gardens in 1873 providing a similar leisure space for the west end of the city. The City engineer, Alexander Beith Macdonald created the Renaissance-influenced design in red sandstone and the spacious steel-framed winter garden and work started in 1894.